He’s, like, you know, a hunk!

February 6th, 2011

Q: Any idea when teenagers starting using “like” and “you know” in place of “um”? I’m an author working on a story set in 1978 and I’m trying to get it right.

A: You’re safe putting “you know” into the mouths of 1970s characters. It’s been a common verbal tic for centuries. (We’ve written several items on the blog about the empty expressions that litter our speech, including a posting last year.)

As for “like,” there are two colloquial usages of the word, and one of them may be too recent for your purposes.

(1) The first (and earlier) usage has been a part of American slang since the 1950s. Here, “like” is used as an interjection, either for emphasis or to hedge a statement. Examples: “He’s, like, a hunk!” … or … “This weighs, like, a ton” … or … “You’re, like, the best.”

This use of “like,” according to Random House, was originally associated “with jazz musicians, later with beatniks, hippies, and teenagers.”

Interestingly, some usages very similar to “like” No. 1 (if not indistinguishable from it) have a history dating back nearly 500 years, according to entries in the Oxford English Dictionary.

In these cases, “like” is used parenthetically to qualify a preceding statement, or before an adjective. Its meaning is roughly “in a way,” “so to speak,” “as it were,” or “in the manner of one who is” (with adjective following), the OED says.

The dictionary cites scores of examples. We’ll give just a few here, along with their dates.

1513: “Yon man is lyke out of his mynd,” from a poem by William Dunbar. (We love this one!)